488 J. L. Smith— Carbon Compounds in Meteorites. 



by a sulphur compound chemists will be apt to admit, perhaps 

 a minute quantity of sulphur compound not unlike the sulph- 

 hydrate of ethylene C*H«S%' and the needle-shaped crystals 

 may not be far removed from the solid quintisulphide of ethyl- 

 ene, C*H«SS corresponding to sulphur 75-00, carbon 20-00, 

 hydrogen 5-00. The crystals I scraped from the sides of the 

 beaker— at the upper part— on which the ether solution of the 

 Orgueil meteorite was evaporated to dryness, gave — sulphur 

 79-65, carbon 1600, hydrogen 3-00. 



In the above analysis the amount of sulphur is well deter- 

 mined ; but the examination for carbon and hydrogen was 

 made upon so small a quantity, that the results cannot be re- 

 lied upon as very correct. 



Roscoe burnt in dry oxygen "008 grams of the residue from 

 the Alais meteorite, and obtained -010 grams of sulphurous 

 acid, -008 grams of carbonic acid, and -003 grams of water, 

 making sulphur 125 parts, carbon 54 parts, hydrogen 10. 



As the above analysis was made with only eight milli- 

 grams, of course the results can be considered only as an ap- 

 proximation ; but nevertheless, until we get better they must 

 serve as our only guides. 



I have not said anything about the gaseous carbon compounds 

 found in meteorites, "as these form a separate study from what 

 is designed in this paper, and besides, Profs. Graham, Mallet, 

 Wright, and others have already investigated their nature. 

 Profs. Wright and Mallet are still engaged in this line of in- 

 vestigation. 



ConcliLsions. 



These then are some of the results of my experiments on 

 the carbon of meteorites, and they are of great interest and 

 importance. That we should find in the graphitic concretions 

 from the interior of a solid mass of iron such substances 

 as free sulphur and a hydrocarbon, simple, or combined with sul- 

 phur, having a marked odor, was certainly not to be expected, 

 especially as we are almost forced to believe that the iron con- 

 taining it must have been at some period in a state of fusion. 



The graphite nodules themselves are grand chemical and 

 physical puzzles, as well as all the nodular concretions m me- 

 teoric irons ; that they have resulted from a process of segrega- 

 tion is self-evident, but how marvelous the completeness ot 

 this segregation, for if we analyze the iron even within two or 

 three millimeters of the concretions, only traces of the charac- 

 i by Dr. Mohr(An.alen der Che- und Pharm ., 



